


actually i was liberating her (and myself)

by gnarleyquinn



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fear, Internalized Homophobia, Multi, Self-Acceptance, Suicidal Thoughts, there's a light ending i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 16:38:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6432181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gnarleyquinn/pseuds/gnarleyquinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sara knows why she wants to help Lindsay so immensely. She doesn't know why she is so infatuated with this nurse from 1958, but she knows why she wants to help her. </p><p>or</p><p>the one where sara gets a little too angsty and a little too reminiscent at the same time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	actually i was liberating her (and myself)

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoy this! It's set during 1x08, probably after Sara and Stein's conversation in the waverider.
> 
> tumblr: gaycanary.tumblr.com

Sara knows why she wants to help Lindsay so immensely. She doesn't know why she is so infatuated with this nurse from 1958, but she knows why she wants to help her.

Sara knows what it’s like to be stuck.

Stuck wanting.

Stuck needing.

Stuck not being able to embrace the person you are inside, the person that is _so desperately_ clawing its way out of your mind.

Sara is familiar with the hardships. She understands the misunderstandings, and she isn’t oblivious to the ignorance. She remembers her fear of people finding out, her fear of her parents finding out. She doesn't feel pride in thinking so low of her sister but she used to be terrified of the day Laurel would discover the truth.

But though she has been far, far away from that place for so long, when Lindsay kissed her, it took Sara back.

Back to the loneliness.

The pain.

The self acceptance.

Back to Nyssa.

Back to it all.

***

Sara is aware that her legacy in life—the life that doesn’t involve vigilantes and time travel—will be her party girl image. Her years of high school, and what was completed of college, are defined in alcohol and sex. It’s a past she is not proud of, but her actions weren’t exactly groundless. She has never been one for labels, but one thing Sara Lance has always known is that she isn’t straight.

Sara likes people and that’s all there is to it. But she didn't always think that way.

Up until meeting Nyssa, she didn't want to admit it. Couldn't admit it. So she did what made _it_ seem better. She talked to boys, and kissed them, and fooled around with them, and did anything in her power to tame the other side. She denied denial until straight was her middle name and even then she still felt too bent.

Then she met a handsome playboy who had stolen the heart of her big sister.

Oliver Queen was almost as terrified of life as Sara was.

So she slept with him.

And again.

And again.

Her life was spiraling. She’d been on a bender that began with a shot of tequila and hadn't slowed down since. When Oliver invited her for a weekend on the Gambit, she didn't hesitate.

When her mother told her not to leave, she didn't hesitate.

When she snuck past Laurel as she made her way down the docks, she didn't hesitate.

When Oliver popped open an eight-thousand dollar bottle of wine, she didn't hesitate.

Sara drank until her lungs screamed and she didn't know where she was, and when the storm hit and the window broke, the waves pulled her under and when she awoke her lungs screamed and she didn't know where she was.

Sara had always used the term “Lost at Sea” to describe the shipwreck in her head but she never thought she would have to take it quite so literally. Long ago she thought this was when she hit rock bottom. But she knows now that this was simply the beginning of her downfall. Because at this point she was feeling. She felt sorrow and remorse, she felt loneliness and fear, she even felt a small bit of hope.

She found herself on a large ship with a man of ambition and a promise of home. Dr. Anthony Ivo saved her from the deep ocean, and she thought he had saved her from the depths of her mind as well.

Deep down Sara knew it wasn’t love. Ivo was married, and even though that had never stopped her before, it stopped him. So she pretended. Thousands of miles away from home and Sara still needed to convince herself. So she did as he asked. She studied maps and ancient legends. She learned the science behind the Mirakuru and what it does. She mastered the art of electrocution and punching at just the angle where she could knock a guy’s nose off. Day in and day out she did favor after favor and just pretended.

After a year had gone by, the Amazo finally reached Lian Yu. Sara had waited for this day for eternity, although eternity felt far too short. Yes, she had become invested in this project and wanted to see it through, but she didn't want to go home yet. She wasn't ready to go home yet. She was afraid. Afraid to face her city. Afraid to face her parents, afraid to face Laurel. She knew she was a coward, she had always been one. But Sara was tired. She was so tired of this endless cycle of fear in her life. So she shut it off.

Sara didn't feel things anymore. She didn't want to. She just, existed. She followed orders. She used Ivo’s prisoners as punching bags. She worked until numbers and letters looked like hieroglyphics and hieroglyphics looked like numbers and letters.

And when Ivo’s plan went to shit and she felt her shaky knees digging into the rocky terrain on the trails of Lian Yu, Sara thought that was it. A gun wavering between Oliver Queen’s mistress and a girl who she knew he had fallen for.

Sara was prepared to die.

So when she heard the gunshot go off and Oliver’s screams echoed in her ringing ears, she knew that that was the moment she really hit rock bottom.

Sara was ready to die.

It would’ve been easy.

In the back of her head and out the front.

And not only was she ready to die, Sara realized she wanted to. She felt this life had nothing more to offer. Nothing _left_ to offer.

Sara didn’t think she deserved whatever else Earth could give her. She wanted out. She wanted her eyes to stop seeing and her heart to stop beating. She wanted nothing more than to disappear. From this life, and the next. She wanted to be gone.

But alas, the death penalty is too kind for someone like her.

Someone like her, to whom immorality became morality. Someone like her, who beat people down for the satisfaction of watching them not get up. Someone like her, who lied to everyone. Someone like her, who lied to _herself_.

Someone like her deserved damnation.

And slowly but surely she realized she didn't have to die— she was already dead.

Sara hadn’t actually lived for years. She was merely a shell of the person she once was. Her blood consisted of those she’d hurt, her heart coated in kevlar. She began to describe her sky blue eyes as the color of ice but could melt a person with one glare.

The old Sara was gone and when Nyssa al Ghul found her starving on the shores of Lian Yu, Taer al-Sahfer was born.

Nyssa brought her to Nanda Parbat where she began training with the League of Assassins.

In her first year all Sara did was practice. Under the watchful eye of Ra’s al Ghul, she tried to prove herself worthy, time and time again.

She trained until other recruits feared her, and she trained until she feared herself. She trained until she reminded herself that fear was no longer in her vocabulary and she kept on every time she remembered that fear was the definition of her life.

During her time there, she and Nyssa formed a bond. Sara had called it deep friendship at the time, but she knew, as she had always known, that it was much more than that. But as she often noted and hated to admit, Sara’s life was fueled in fear, and _this_ was something that Sara had always been afraid of.

Ra’s never approved of Sara during her time with League. His most lethal assassin and his most lethal liability. She swore allegiance, yes, but Sara Lance had a history of dishonoring commitment. Members were to serve the League with no questions, but Sara would ask. Members were to forget their former-selves and embrace their new personas within the League, but Sara refused.

Ra’s threatened her, but Sara refused.

Ra’s threatened her family, but Sara refused.

She’d always wished she could’ve been someone else.

She’d always wished she felt a different way. _Loved_ , a different way. She lived a lie of a life.

Sara Lance was a fraud.

She shoved the truth under her bed, favored the monsters instead and destroyed her world with self hatred and booze. She had a death wish and tried to kill herself by staying alive but standing there, before Ra’s, before Nyssa, before every wrong she had ever done in her life, standing there, her sins became sins of the past. And Sara knew her past made her what she was. What she is.

She didn’t want to be someone else anymore. She wanted to be Taer al-Sahfer, member of the League of Assassins and protector of the people, but she also wanted to be Sara.

Sara, who didn't care what others thought.

Sara, who wasn’t afraid of living.

Sara, who liked people.

Sara, who liked Nyssa.

And that’s what she did. She executed her missions without flaw, and appeased Ra’s al Ghul’s skepticism. He tolerated her, and he tolerated her relationship with his daughter.

She loved Nyssa with all her heart and she left Nyssa with a broken heart but looking back now, she knows their love is ever lasting.

They aren’t together anymore. Hell, Sara is in a different _century_. But she knows, wherever, and whenever, she is, their love exists. She found a home in the one thing that she always thought she couldn’t, and that’s why she wants to help Lindsay. Not because she wants to fall in love, and not because she hasn’t dated in a while. But because when she and Lindsay touched lips, Sara remembered. She remembered what it’s like.

She knows what it’s like to battle your fears, and to fear the battle. She knows what it’s like to have thoughts you think are wrong and to do wrong because of thoughts you think are right. She knows what it feels like to not feel at all, just to save yourself the pain of accepting who you are.

 

And she knows, that no one should ever live like that. Not Nyssa, not Lindsay. Especially not herself.

(And maybe she does deserve damnation. But not without the chance to be who she wants.)


End file.
